The Law Ministry is learnt to have cleared the file of Justice Dattu's appointment and sent it to the Prime Minister's Office. His Warrant of Appointment will be issued shortly after the President clears it, sources said.

As per the laid down procedure, Justice Lodha had recently written to the Law Minister nominating Justice Dattu, the senior-most Supreme Court judge after him, as the next CJI.

Justice Dattu (63) has been heading the bench monitoring investigations into the 2G spectrum scam. He will have a tenure of little over one year before he retires on December 2, 2015.

He joined the Supreme Court as a judge in December 2008. Born on December 13, 1950, he enrolled as an advocate in 1975 and began practising in Bangalore and dealt with all types of matters -- civil, criminal, tax and Constitutional cases.

From 1983 onwards he appeared in various capacities before the Karnataka High Court including as government pleader for sales tax department, standing counsel for Income Tax department and later as government advocate. After being designated as a senior standing counsel for I-T department in 1995, Justice Dattu was elevated as a judge of the Karnataka High Court.

He was elevated as the Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court in February 2007 and shortly afterwards shifted in the same capacity to the Kerala High Court.

He will be the second apex court judge to take oath as the Chief Justice of India this year. Justice Lodha took oath in April this year.

Indian Judiciary as best: Justice HL Dattu

Justice H L Dattu, who will be the next Chief Justice of India, today described the Indian Judiciary as the best in the world and vowed to take it to the "highest stride" by overcoming some of the "recent beatings".

"There have been some sort of beatings(to the institution) in recent times which I will try to take care of," Justice Dattu, who will succeed Justice R M Lodha, as the 42nd CJI, said.

"I will request for blessing of all citizens of this country to give me courage and confidence to take this institution of mine to the highest stride," the 63-year-old judge said.

Justice Dattu, whose father was a teacher in a school, said, "it will be the happiest day of his life to head the institution of judiciary" and "at the end of the day I can only say that I will do my best to improve the institution".

"Mine is the best institution in the world," he added.

However, the judge, who started his legal profession from Karnataka, refused to comment on the issue of latest controversy surrounding the attempt to scrap the collegiums system of appointment of judges for higher judiciary.

"I will not make any comment on the issue at this moment," Justice Dattu said while openly mentioning that he is a follower of Lord Balaji and considers former CJI S Rajendra Babu as his "guru" without whose blessing he would not have reached to the present position.